Tucson’s hip-hop scene is gaining momentum, say those who’ve been bringing the vibe for the last decade, with rappers, beat producers, DJs, break dancers and graffiti artists.
“The whole scene is more of a culture, a connection — it’s more of a movement,” said Ryan “Phen” Troncoso, 32, co-producer of Pushing Buttons, a showcase of electronic-music producers creating songs in front of a live audience at Flycatcher the first Saturday of every month.
The music producers take turns creating their sets, using a combination of laptops, synthesizers, turntables, MIDI controllers, vintage samplers and drum machines, as well as drum kits and other live instrumentation. Several tables in front of the stage hold the equipment, so the audience can get a closer look at how the producers create their songs.
Some of the performers combine pre-existing tracks, others create sounds on the spot and use looping pedals, and some incorporate modified sound bites from previous shows, said the show’s host and co-producer, Roch Mirabeau, 31.
“It’s always good to see people’s creative process,” he said. “Everybody goes through their approach to art differently. It gives me a lot of inspiration to see how people approach presenting their beat to a captive audience.”
Pushing Buttons performer Will Bratt starting creating music about seven years ago, when he was 14. He creates melodies on a vintage synthesizer, an electronic instrument typically operated by a keyboard, and combines them with his own electronically altered vocals. Then he puts this old-school, analog sound into his computer and adds bass, drums and music samples taken off old records, which he finds rummaging the dollar bins at Goodwill.
“If I like the artwork on the record, I’ll take it and play it front to back, and if I hear something I like on it, I’ll try to make a song out of it,” he said. “When you’re putting a set together for something like this, you’re creating beats and you’re saying, ‘I want everyone to get energized and hyped up.’ You imagine what the crowd is going to be like.”
The crowd at the August show was bobbing and weaving with the music, whooping with joy upon hearing an extra juicy groove. Periodically, a space opened on the dance floor and a couple men took turns breakdancing.
While breakdancing is a male-dominated art, there are a few local female dancers working hard to make their mark, like Zina “Bgirl Phenx” Rubiner, 26, who fell in love with breaking 12 years ago. She liked the acrobatic element of it and that she had to work on her strength and balance, but she also liked the whole scene, she said.
“It’s just a really positive, really motivational scene, and there’s a ton of people, from all genres, all different colors and places of the world,” she said. “It’s really amazing the talent that’s within the scene and the artistic expression coming from people who don’t have much and are doing these really incredible things.”
We Are Buggin Out is an entertainment website devoted to the local hip-hop scene, founded by Pike Romero, 33, who reviews local albums, singles and projects on the site, as well as curating shows at his art gallery/music venue The Scrvtch Shvck, pronounced Scratch Shack, a small converted church off Speedway.
This is the spawn of what the music industry is going to be like here, said Bratt, who also does marketing and advertising for We Are Buggin Out.
“Five years from now, it’s going to be huge because there’s definitely the market here—there’s the talent; there’s the people,” he said. “We’re growing it; we’re building it. This is the place to be if you’re an artist.”
